


Don't Lose Your Heart

by SherlockWho



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Romance, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-19
Updated: 2013-11-19
Packaged: 2018-01-02 02:33:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1051496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SherlockWho/pseuds/SherlockWho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five lessons Sherlock learned in his life, plus one lesson that redeemed them all.</p><p>(Always wanted to do one of these five-plus-one things.)</p><p>Do not trust.  Do not love.  Don't let anyone get close to you.  Do not get bored.  Do not give up hope.</p><p>Sherlock misunderstands his mother's whispered instruction to him and it leads him away from his own humanity.  Can he redeem himself and learn to trust again?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Lose Your Heart

 

  
**1.**

**Do Not Trust.**

 

When Sherlock Holmes was four years old, he was stung by a bee.

He hadn’t even noticed the bees at first.  He was in high spirits as he and Mycroft wandered through a lovely hillside scene outside of Vienna on holidays with their parents.  Spring was rampant in the hills and, as Mycroft—all of eleven years old and already full of a sense of his own importance—rambled on ahead and fussed at Sherlock to keep up, Sherlock found himself mesmerised by the pageantry of nature around him.  He stopped often, despite Mycroft’s chiding and temper, because there was just _too much_ to see and smell and learn, and he prattled almost endlessly in his child’s voice:

“Mycroft!  Look at these flowers!  They all look _exactly_ alike.  White, and they smell nice!  Mummy would love these.  We should pick some—oh, Mycroft, look at the grass!  It’s like water, the way it’s rolling.  It even sounds nice, like a whisper.  Mycroft!  I can see shapes in the sky, the clouds.  That looks like a beaver, look at the tail!”

“Sherlock, do keep up.”

“But look!  Beaver!  And right behind it is a dog.  No, a cat.  Definitely a cat.  It even looks like it’s walking.  Is it going to rain, I wonder?  Where does the water come from in the clouds, Mycroft?  Do you think we’ll see deers?  Or is it deer?  Why isn’t there an S at the end of that?”

That’s when Sherlock heard the buzzing.  He spun where he stood, his cloud of dark auburn curls unruly and as wild as his energetic young genius brain, and his vivid eyes seemed as blue as the sky above him as he frantically searched for the source of the buzzing.  He found them soon enough, about a dozen bees sampling the abundant pollen of a nearby stand of wildflowers.

“Mycroft!  Look!”  He sank to his knees, than even further down as he lay flat on his belly and watched the industry of the insects around him.  His wonder was evident in his face, but even through his wonder that these fat little creatures could fly, and do it so apparently lazily, he saw the patterns of what they were doing.  His voice was hushed as he mumbled his observations: “They know each other; they bump into each other on purpose, a little like secret handshakes like you were telling me about, Mycroft.  I think they’re all related!  Brothers and sisters, all of them, like us.  Look at them, how they visit each flower, so careful, but it looks so random.”  His pale eyes flicked between the individual bees, somehow keeping up with the identity of each.  “They’re wonderful,” he breathed, and he reached out to touch one, to pet one—

He pulled his hand away in panic, pain shooting up his arm.  “Ow!”  He looked down at the grass in front of him and saw a bee curled there, twitching, its bottom somehow mangled.  He looked down at his finger and saw something grisly and gruesome there.  The pad of his left forefinger was starting to swell. 

“I just wanted to play,” he said softly, and he knew he was directing his words to the dying bee.  “I only wanted to say hello.”

“Sherlock?  Sherlock!”

“Mycroft!” Sherlock wailed, holding his finger against his chest and staring, horrified, at the bee in the grass.  It wasn’t moving anymore.  He looked up and around and saw the rest of the bees moving warily on, away from the stand of wildflowers that had so entranced them just a little while ago.

Mycroft found him this way and, in the way of all big brothers who had overlooked their duties just long enough for there to be damage, he immediately started to berate Sherlock’s ignorance.  Sherlock wanted to say so much, as he always did; he wanted to outline his observations, detail his feelings, share his thoughts and, in the end, gain the understanding of one other person.  He wanted to find trust.

By the time they’d arrived home and Nanny had removed the sting and bandaged the finger, Sherlock came to the soul-crushing and disappointing realization that Mycroft would never be the person he could trust with all of his thoughts and feelings.

It was the last time he babbled like that with his brother. 

 

**2.**

**Do Not Love.**

 

Sherlock was eleven years old when his parents divorced.

Mycroft was giving him a lesson that seemed more like a game.  “What book are you reading, Sherlock?”

“The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.”

“Again?”

They were sitting in the library of their manor house, surrounded by books both rare and mass-market.  Sherlock loved the book in his lap and was wearied by the note of scorn in his brother’s voice.  After all, Mycroft was eighteen now and fancied himself the scholar, his tastes running to the elitist literature of James Joyce and the poetry of Robert Burns. 

Mycroft closed whatever nonsense he was reading and closed his eyes.  “Which character are you reading about right now?”

“The White Witch,” Sherlock answered.  He did not elaborate.  He never did anymore, not with Mycroft.

“And what is she doing?”

“She’s sitting in her sledge.”

“And if she were to be transported from where she is in the book to this library, how would you know who she is?”

Sherlock looked up and cursed himself for the eagerness in his face.  He loved this game.  “Her cloak.  Her hair.  Her height.”

Mycroft nodded and steepled his fingers, tapping his lips with them.  “Go on.”

Sherlock closed his eyes, trying to imagine the witch in her sledge.  “She’s likely been sitting a while; perhaps her metabolism has dropped as a result and her body is cold—well, colder than usual.  Her clothing is distinctive, she’s royalty—but I imagine royalty from Narnia or wherever is different to royalty here.”

Mycroft leaned forward; despite his closed eyes Sherlock knew it by the creak of the chair in which his brother was sitting.  “In what way?”

“Our royalty still sweats and farts—there would be smells,” Sherlock answered.  “Trapped in their finery, they would still stink like all humans do.  I don’t think she would.”

“No smell at all?”

Sherlock opened his eyes.  “If she smells like anything, she smells like sulphur.”

Mycroft looked dubious.  “A winter witch would smell like sulphur?  Why?”

Sherlock grinned, but it lacked any real humour.  He hadn’t smiled an authentic smile in months.  He closed the book and waved it a bit.  “This isn’t the only book.  She’s not from Narnia.  The world she was from was falling apart, burning.”

Mycroft nodded.  “Yes.  Good.”

The door to the library opened.  Their mother entered, and Sherlock’s breath caught.  It was obvious she was sad; there were traces of tears in her reddened eyes and her face was a little puffy.  Despite that, she was as she always was: a refined French beauty, delicate features and soft hands overlaying a steel core.

“Mummy,” Mycroft said, rising to his feet.  Sherlock scrambled up from his own chair and dropped his book on the floor.

“What have I told you boys about this mess?” she said, her voice—so usually deep and velvet-soft—now raspy with stress and emotion.

“Sorry Mummy,” Sherlock said softly.  He flicked his eyes over her: Wool jacket and skirt, cashmere blouse, leather pumps and gloves, hat.  She was going out.

No, strike that.  She was _leaving_.  It was time.

She shook her head.  “Never mind, my darlings.  Read all you want.  Leave the books wherever you like.”  She looked around the room and Sherlock saw what she saw.  It was her favorite room, the room their father had given her for a wedding present.  It was alive with activity.  “Live in your spaces, boys.  Order is for estate photos and magazines.”

Sherlock let out a small cry of protest.  She was leaving.  She was leaving _him_.  He rushed forward and threw his arms around her slender waist.

“Ah, _mon couer_ ,” she whispered, ruffling her gloved fingers through his unruly mop of hair.  “It is not a forever goodbye.  You will come see me, _non_?  Come to see me soon in Avignon.”  She sank down to Sherlock’s level and leaned forward to whisper in his ear: “Your brother, perhaps not so much, and _oui_ , that will break my heart.  But for you to not come to visit?  It will break my soul, Sherlock.”  She flicked her pale eyes towards where Mycroft was standing.  “He is like your father, so like him, all business and mind and strategies—but you are like me.”  She kissed him softly on the cheek.  “Just like me.  Do not lose sight of that.  Do not let them break you, like they broke me.  Do not lose your heart.”

For too long Sherlock misunderstood what that meant.  It took far too long for him to ask her to explain.

 

**3.**

**Do Not Let Others Close.**

 

Sherlock was eighteen years old when he was kissed for the first and, nearly, the last time.

He should have known better.  It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen the signs of infatuation from the first day he’d clapped eyes on Victor Trevor; he was, after all, the most observant person in his university classes.  He’d been very careful throughout his formative years to follow his mother’s advice, to not lose his heart.  But this was uni, and he was so very tired and so very alone.  Despite the fact that he knew he couldn’t trust Mycroft the way he once aspired to didn’t mean he didn’t miss him; he missed him in that frankly antagonistic way brothers had of missing each other.  He needed something, needed someone, and if Victor wanted to be that someone, wanted to be his admirer and constant companion—well, Sherlock could certainly do worse.  Victor wasn’t unappealing; he was open and honest and loyal.  He was strong and athletic, yet not intimidating, owing to his shorter stature and affability.  Sherlock had never been so flattered before, that someone so—well, so _common_ , so accessible and normal—would be so fascinated by him.

Then, during an especially long string of deductions about the pretty violinist in the orchestra, whispered directly in Victor’s ear during a winter performance, Victor had leaned back just enough to kiss Sherlock on the cheek.

Sherlock sat back fully as if he’d been stung.  Physical intimacy was startling and wholly new to him, slave as he was to his mother’s fervent instruction to not lose his heart.  He had suspected all along that touch would be a key to it; he was fond of being touched, perhaps too fond, and he hadn’t been touched in any affectionate manner since his mother, which meant he had never, ever been touched sexually.

But now, with that kiss burning on his cheek, he was intrigued.  No, _intrigued_ wasn’t the word.  Sherlock was _compelled_.  He couldn’t properly concentrate on the rest of the performance.  It was if a dam had burst, and Sherlock wanted more contact, more touch, more kisses.  His mind was in a disorganised freefall and his body was slipping out of his control.

 _Just once_ , he promised himself as he invited Victor back to his flat.  _I will indulge just once, give in just once.  I need this.  I’m tired and lonely and I need this._

His veins felt as if they were pounding with pure adrenaline as he let Victor in, as they came to sit on his sofa, as they cast furtive little glances at each other.  Victor cleared his throat and scooted closer.  Sherlock tensed even tighter.

Victor chuckled.  “Let’s just—calm down, would you?”

Sherlock put on a good sham of calming down as he forced his limbs to appear relaxed.  It was like posing a wooden mannequin into a lazy posture.

Then Victor’s hand was on his face, and his lips were on Sherlock’s temple, and Sherlock sighed.  Yes, he had needed this, needed the affection and the care, it had been too long, he was his mother’s son and he loved the caresses and the kisses, needed them like oxygen—

A safe, chaste kiss on the lips, followed soon enough by more kisses, less chaste and less safe, and Sherlock became quickly aware that this was no longer about reassurance and comfort and affection.  This was about sex.  He didn’t want sex.  He experienced the urges of course, but those urges he could take care of himself.  He didn’t need anyone else to touch him like that.  He didn’t want it.  It was too much.  It was too intimate and it would mean—something. 

“Stop,” he whispered, and he could hear the tension in his own voice. 

Victor stopped, but he was hovering.  “Why?”

“I don’t—I can’t.”

“What do you mean, can’t?”  Victor sounded—not hurt.  _Offended_.

Sherlock did not react well to the warning bells he heard in his head.  “I mean _can’t_.”

“Can’t have sex?  Or you don’t want to have sex with me?”

Sherlock bared his teeth.  “Well obviously I _can_ have sex, Victor.  I have the equipment to do it.  I have the basic motor skills.”  He sneered.  “The only remaining hypothesis you’ve presented—“

“You don’t want to have sex with me.”

Honesty then.  Sherlock could deal with honesty.  “Correct.”

Victor surged off the couch and stormed to the front door.  “Why did you bring me here then?” he asked, his face turned back over his shoulder.  _Last chance_ , the expression on his face said.  _You can make this right, Sherlock.  Make this right._

It was time this farce was over.  Sherlock gave him a one-shouldered shrug.  Easy to affect indifference.  “An experiment.”

Victor barked a bitter laugh and left without another word.

The taunting and teasing started not long after that—at first only among Victor’s friends, but soon enough spreading to the rest of the school.  By then, however, Sherlock appreciated the solitude.  _Alone protects me._

That philosophy held for the next fourteen years.

 

**4.**

**Do Not Get Bored.**

 

Sherlock was twenty-five when he discovered cocaine and heroin.

He had turned to cigarettes after his break with Victor, as a means to get control over his humiliation and shame over the mean-spiritedness of his classmates.  He had deprived himself of so much, surely this one little thing—this one little head rush, the spike of nicotine in his system—this couldn’t be bad, could it?

Oh, it could, though.  It could be very bad.  He could become very dependent very quickly, and he did.  He needed the cigarettes, and he needed them to be increasingly stronger, more potent.

Over the following years he turned his disdain for all things that could pacify his treacherous body into fascination for them.  He started by studying the available literature and scientific papers on each kind of recreational chemical, from alcohol to marijuana to methamphetamines.  He extrapolated the data and theorised what his own reactions would be to each.  And then, after a particularly embarrassing scene in the dining hall during which he’d deduced that Victor had spent the night not with his own boyfriend but with Sebastian Wilkes of all people, the poncey tosser, Sherlock had tried marijuana.

It had been—interesting.  He felt free of his own insecurities.  He felt relieved of his social ineptitude.  What did it matter if he was socially inept when everything was so funny?  He was aware even in the middle of his high that this was all perfectly irrational, but he couldn’t bring himself to hate it.  Freedom was intoxicating.  He went out that night and, in a bar far away from the university, practiced his flirting.  He became very good at it, pulling any number of people and giving them faked phone numbers and addresses.

Marijuana did him just fine for a number of years, and he mastered the art of appearing perfectly normal—if perhaps a little less taciturn—during his highs.  Even Mycroft couldn’t really tell after a while.  But marijuana was a practical thing, good for getting him socialised and showing him how to act like a normal human being.  It didn’t actually _make him_ a normal human being, and the further he drifted from others his age, the more isolated he felt.  The drug he was using only made him more aware of that when he wasn’t on it.

He tried to find an occupational distraction, he really did.  Once he’d emancipated himself from university and relocated to London he tried to get the attention of the Met, sending them tips on how to do their own jobs better.  They ignored him, as they had from the very beginning over that kid up from Sussex for some swimming competition—Carl Powers, that had been his name.  He considered turning to the other side, offering his skills to the underworld and making a name for himself as a fixer of problems . . .but his mother would never approve of that.  She would know from a glance what he was up to, and he couldn’t bear to let her down.  Well, not any more than he already had.

So at the beginning of the year, in the depths of January, on his twenty-fifth birthday, Sherlock Holmes turned to harder drugs.  His gifts to himself that year were a line of cocaine and a line of heroin.  They were the only gifts he received that year, but they were enough.  He saw the dragon for the first time that night, and it was breathtaking.  He was outside of himself, outside of the awkwardness and tedium of his own existence.  The boredom was alleviated and his mind was quiet in the face of such sublime splendour.

He spent the next three years chasing the dragon, and he very nearly died in its pursuit.

 

**5.**

**Do Not Give Up Hope.**

 

Sherlock was thirty-two years old when he met John Hamish Watson.

_“Here.  Use mine.”_

_The complement of opposites._ Sherlock had already observed several things about the man standing at the opposite end of the lab workstation from him: His gait was a watered-down affectation of an authentic limp.  Even so, his posture was erect, a little proud, and dutiful.  He was chatting with Mike Stamford about how things were a “bit different” from the time he’d spent at Bart’s previously.

Even so, Sherlock did not afford him the full weight of his attention until he heard those three little words: _Here.  Use mine._

This man didn’t know him, yet he offered him the use of his mobile.  _Of service.  Generous with his time and his things.  A good heart._

_Perhaps._

“Oh,” Sherlock said, a small spark of revelation flashing through his mind.  All revelations came with that kind of soft exclamation—or more forceful, depending on the breadth of the discovery.  “Thank you.”

He really tried, of course.  He wasn’t trying so hard these days.  He _was_ a freak, certainly, but that couldn’t be a bad thing since most of humanity was boring and dull and stupid.  But if this man was going to be his flatmate (and dear God, needing a flatmate?  Really?  Mycroft cutting him off from his trust was just that much too much), then he was going to try to not scare him off.  From what he could see of the man, he was one of the worthier specimens of humanity.

But he was himself, and he saw the facts of a person buzzing around them like a swarm of bees, and how could he be expected to ignore all that data?  How could he be silent and not comment on it?

“Afghanistan or Iraq?”

 _Damn_.

It was too late to sell anyone on the prospect of living with him, obviously.  His best chance with this fascinating little ex-army doctor would be to get him into the flat.  221B Baker Street, with its ideal location and warmth and spaces, could sell itself—oh, the flat and Mrs. Hudson.  She was a deceptively sweet little lady, accommodating and so very matronly.  If only others knew her steel.

_Just be normal-like long enough to get him to the flat._

And Dr. Watson had come the next day—not scared away, then.  Intrigued, perhaps.  He had taken to the flat like any true-at-heart Londoner would.  And then—Sherlock had _observed_ something about him.  When DI Lestrade had announced during John’s little _getting-to-know-you_ visit with news about another so-called “suicide,” John had been _listening_.

 _Perhaps_.

Eventually it came time for Sherlock to explain his deductions about John’s service and brother and limp.  John did not call him a freak or laugh at him or angrily tell him to piss off.  John had seemed delighted and had called him amazing.  Sherlock had been stunned to silence.

Sherlock had been alone for quite a while ( _alone protects me_ ) and had left John behind at the crime scene, but Mycroft’s interference had firmed his resolve to not do that again.  If John was going to be his . . .his _perhaps_ , then he was going to have to guard him far more diligently.  _No problem_ , he thought, coming to the sudden and rather overwhelming realisation that he was a jealous man and did not want to share this—whatever it was.  This _complement of opposites._ This _perhaps_.

And John had delivered his phone again for Sherlock’s use.  He had left behind his useless cane to chase after Sherlock across rooftops and through alleys.  He had defended Sherlock to Lestrade, who knew what he was looking for.  And with a sudden gunshot he had saved Sherlock’s life.

This was no longer _perhaps._   This was _definitely_.

Sherlock had made one misstep through the whole thing, fearing a repeat of the Victor experience—after all, John reminded one so much of that error, and who could blame him for being terrified of making the mistake again?  He had warned John off, and John’s reaction—stammering refusal—had reassured Sherlock that, even if John didn’t realise the attraction or care to ever acknowledge it, he would never, ever act on it.  Sherlock was safe from the sex issue.

As such, this could be everything he’d ever needed.

Except—that gunshot had changed something.  It had earned something for John that Sherlock hadn’t felt in years—in decades.  He felt trust, complete and wholehearted trust.  He felt free to babble, to say everything.  He wanted to share with John everything he saw, everything he felt, and suddenly there was entirely too much of that, thank you very much.

Sherlock was in the strange position of wanting something more and having the time to hate himself for it.

As for the question of sex—right.  Never had it.  Never wanted it.  But the trust he felt in John, the trust that was reinforced with every case and every cab ride and every late-night dinner, made him curious.  What would that be like, to have sex with someone he trusted?  Someone who would never hurt him, who would never engage in it for the simple purpose of getting a leg over?  Sherlock meant something to John—he wasn’t a modest man and he knew the effect he had on people, and he could easily see how important he’d become to the doctor.  Would John be tender and kind and patient?  Would he only fuck Sherlock, or would he be careful and make love to him?

Dangerous, this bit of justification, especially when John was determined to be so stubbornly heterosexual.  Not a threat at all to Sherlock’s self-diagnosed and now doubtful asexuality, but Sherlock wanted it threatened now. 

But all he could offer John was the Work.  And in the end, it was the Work and Sherlock’s need to show off that ended it all.

 

**+1.**

**Risk It All For Love.**

 

When Sherlock was thirty-six years old, he realized he’d been wrong.

“ _Mon Coeur_ , you ridiculous boy.”

“Mummy—shush now.  Rest.”

His mother, the stately French lady of the pale eyes and the brown curls, whose smile could be so joyous while her eyes could be so brokenhearted, was laying in what would end up being her deathbed, and she was trying to reassure her son.  “I will have all the rest I can handle soon enough.  I have to say this now.”

“You’re implying that you won’t have another chance.”

“Look at me, Sherlock.  See me.  What do you think?”

He didn’t want to, but observing was what Sherlock did, even in his sleep.  For instance, he couldn’t seem to stop observing that John wasn’t doing well in his absence.  He ran his eyes appraisingly over his mother, assessing her condition and letting himself appreciate the extremity of her illness.  “Right.”

“Now let me talk.”

He gave her a weak smirk.  “I could never stop you.”

“You have been alone too long.”

“Mummy—“

“Too long.  Too many years wasted.  Why?”

He bent his head over her weak, withered hand and gave it a dry kiss.  “Because of what you said.”  He explained, recalling the scene from that day in the library, the day she left her family over her husband’s infidelity, the day she returned to Avignon to stay.

“Oh, _mon fils_ ,” she breathed gustily.  “You hear, but you do not listen.”

“How could it mean anything else?  _Do not let them break you, like they broke me.  Do not lose your heart_.  What else could that have meant, _Maman?”_

“That you have to keep loving, no matter the cost,” she said softly.  “You must not give up.  You must allow yourself to love, find someone worth the pain and love with all your heart.  They broke me, your father and your brother.  They made me afraid to show my heart.  But yours is so beautiful, Sherlock.  Don’t hide it any longer.”  She met his eye, hers just as changeable and prismatic as his.  “You’ve told me what you’ve been through since you . . .left London.  I know what you’ve been doing.  And you have to have been doing that for someone extraordinary.”

“Mummy—“

“I do not want to let go of this world until I know someone is taking care of you the way you deserve,” she said in a voice so forceful Sherlock felt again like he was six years old and in a great deal of trouble.  “And if you make me hold on much longer I will be in a great deal of pain.”

He didn’t ask what she was saying.  She was telling him to go home and declare himself.  It was finally safe, he’d told her that much.  Now it was time to return to London and _live_.  And _love_.

“I’m frightened,” he admitted.  “What if—“

“What if he doesn’t love you back?” she asked, petting his hand where it lay under hers.  “Sherlock, if he doesn’t love the beautiful, exceptional creature you are, he isn’t half so right for you as you’ve led yourself to believe.”

“He’s . . . _Maman_ , he’s perfect.”

“Then let him take care of you, my son.  Let a mother die in peace in the knowledge that her son’s precious heart is safe.”

 

oooOOOoooOOOooo

 

It wasn’t easy.

Sherlock had to endure the sight of John’s limp, of his horror, of his slow-dawning acceptance that he had been left behind by choice and then left in the dark.  He had to endure a frankly impressive right hook that did not spare his nose this time.  He had to endure living alone in Baker Street for a month while John avoided him and took his time getting used to the idea that Sherlock was alive.  He kept his heart and his feelings to himself, despite the fact that now, more than ever, he wanted to drag John around London and tell him everything he was seeing, everything he was feeling:

_Do you see the way the Gherkin shines in the dawn, John?  Do you see how it’s like a holy thing, like a modernised Egyptian obelisk?  And the Thames is like the Nile, symbolic and practical and a reflection of the people who have settled it._

_Oh, and John!  Smell that.  It’s not one single thing—not just Thai curry or car exhaust or the lingering traces of the morning’s rainshower—it’s all of it.  It’s London you’re smelling.  I’m home, John.  I don’t want to leave again, never again, because I love London—but I’ll do it.  For you.  To keep you safe.  Next time I want to bring you with me, John.  I want to bring you with me to Italy, to America, even to Avignon.  I want you to meet my mother before it’s too late—_

It was two weeks after John moved back in, two weeks of awkwardness and the adaptation of old routines, and it was the night after a particularly taxing case wrapped up in a less than satisfactory method, that it happened.

“You’re different,” John whispered from where he sat in his chair, his eyes emptily scanning the newspaper he was holding.

Sherlock said nothing, simply sipped his tea.  Here it was, _the Talk_.  It was overdue, and it was finally happening.

“It’s how you handle the cases.  I’m not blind, you know.  I do notice things.”

“Whatever do you mean,” Sherlock said more than asked as he steepled his fingers and rubbed them idly against his lips.

“You’re less arrogant.  You seem to . . .take care more, with people.  You said _thank you_ to Anderson today, for godssake.”

“He moved out of my way in an expeditious fashion.  Seemed like an action that should be rewarded with gratitude.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?”

“Don’t cheapen what I’m saying like that.”

Sherlock’s nerves had caused a sort of merry euphoria, but it drained away under the force of John’s accusation.  “I’m sorry.”

“See?  That’s what I mean.  The Old Sherlock would have—“

“The Old Sherlock?”

“The one who never said thank you and never apologised.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes.  This was taking too long.  His mother was dying and he wasn’t making it any easier on her.  It was time.  He slid off his chair and came to his knees before John.

“Sherlock—what—“

“John, the _Young_ Sherlock didn’t apologise, you’re right.  He didn’t say thank you.  He was working off an erroneous assumption.”

“What—Sherlock, why—“

“I was under the impression for years that I—that _alone protects me_.  I thought my mother told me to keep myself safe by holding myself apart and locking myself away.  It went against my every instinct because I am my mother’s son.”

“What . . .what does that mean?  You’re your mother’s son?”

“My mother is a great romantic,” Sherlock answered, and he allowed his eyes to soften.  _If John doesn’t want this, then I can blame my thoughts of my mother on the softening._   Even so he let his gaze travel over John’s face, the dear jut of his chin, the sunlight-in-ashes color of his now-shaggy hair, the deep blue of his eyes warmed by the firelight.  “She loves with her whole heart.  She cries over silly movies; she loves musicals and she sings along.  She is very . . .tactile.”  At this Sherlock slid a long-fingered hand over John’s thigh.  He watched his fingers splay over the rough denim of John’s jeans and refused to look at John’s face.  He didn’t want to see the revulsion, if it was there.  The gasp of surprise was enough.

“Sherlock—“

“She told me when I was eleven years old to not lose my heart.  I thought she meant that I shouldn’t give it away, that I should hold on to it and guard it.”  He was staring at John’s jumper, that old, now rather tattered oatmeal affair he’d been wearing all along . . . _before_.  The deceptive jumper, the thing that made it seem like John was normal when he was anything but, John’s most convincing camouflage.  “That wasn’t what she was saying at all.  She was telling me to not become like my father, like Mycroft.  She wanted me to keep my heart, to keep it glowing.”

“Sherlock, look at me, please.”

There was a tone in John’s voice Sherlock had never heard before.  It was soft and tender, open and permissive.  This was a John so like the one from before, the one who would come from across London to send a text, who would walk across a room and reach into the jacket Sherlock was wearing to give him his own phone, the one who would do anything for him.

More than anything.  Everything.

_Perhaps._

He looked up into John’s face.  It was transformed, romantic, open and honest as always but telling a tale that was impossible, the ultimate fairy tale—lips parted, pupils dilated, eyebrows raised in a hesitant question.

“We’re not often given a chance to say the things we wished we’d said,” John said, his voice catching and rough.  “I felt like a daft idiot, standing at your grave and realising what you meant to me only after it was too late.  It was hell, Sherlock.”  His eyes screwed shut and he took several deep breaths to regain control over himself.  “I thought you’d died not knowing that I—“

This wasn’t right.  John was about to say it, Sherlock’s own grand declaration stolen from his lips and again John would be the one taking all the risks, in the line of fire, suffering alone.  Not a chance of that.

“John, I love you.”

John’s mouth fell open in shock.

“You shot the cabbie and I loved you,” Sherlock said, slowly rising from where he’d been sitting on his own heels, supplicant before where John was seated.  “You were bleeding from a blow to the head by General Shan’s thugs and I loved you.  Wrapped in Semtex I loved you.”

“Sherlock—“

“You flirted with the Woman and I loved you.  You drank the coffee I drugged and I loved you—and—“

John’s fingers were wrapping around the nape of Sherlock’s neck; he could feel the light scratch of the fingernails in his hair and he trembled.  “Sherlock, please—“

“You did as I asked and watched me fall, and I loved you, I loved you, I loved—“

John silenced him in the most effective way he could, by pressing his lips against Sherlock’s own.

This wasn’t the same kiss he’d been given by Victor Trevor, not by a long shot.  This wasn’t the overly wet, overly horny thing that had been.  This was John, and John loved him, Sherlock knew it—but more importantly, he loved John, and he wanted him, he wanted to wrap himself up in John and touch him everywhere and be touched by him everywhere, he wanted to surrender himself and prove his trust and share his heart, the inexperienced but full-to-bursting thing pumping away in his chest.

John broke away from the kiss and Sherlock slipped both hands into that tawny hair, kissing John’s face—his cheeks, his eyelids, his chin, his nose—until John was giggling from the sensation, until John was effervescent with joy.  He pulled back and saw that joy percolating in John’s deep blue eyes.

“Not an experiment, then?” John asked with only a touch of fear and another touch of teasing.

“You may experiment on me, if you’d like,” Sherlock said, his voice full of a flirting he’d learned during his earliest drug days but made so much more fun by this sober, happy truth.

“Er, well, yeah.  It will be that,” John said.  “I, um.  I don’t know what I’m doing and I’m bound to be shit at it for a while.”

Sherlock pulled at John’s hands until he had those surgeon’s fingers against his lips and he kissed the pads tenderly.  “As long as you’re patient and willing, I suspect we’ll be fine—seeing as I have no experience whatsoever.”

“What—none?”

“None.”  Sherlock was lost in the experience of kissing John’s fingers now—he could taste them, and the slightly tangy, slightly salty flavour mixed with the lingering taste of John’s mouth on Sherlock’s tongue, and he hummed with pleasure.

“You’re a—“

“Virgin, yes,” Sherlock said, darting his tongue out to lick at John’s fingers.  He heard John’s breath catch and he pulled two of his fingers into his mouth.

“Oh, God,” John moaned, and Sherlock watched as his eyelids fluttered down over his eyes.  “Sherlock, your mouth.”

Sucking John’s fingers—oh.  This was nice.  This was natural and right and fun.  But after a couple of minutes sliding them in and out of his mouth, it wasn’t enough.

He felt something rigid against his belly where he was pressed against John’s groin and he smiled wickedly around John’s fingers.  _I know what will be enough_.  He set to work immediately unfastening John’s flies.

“Um, no,” John said, slapping his hands away.  For just a moment Sherlock felt a wash of humiliation, but it ended quickly when John pulled him up and into another mind-erasing kiss.  “Never think it, love,” he whispered into Sherlock’s open mouth.  “I want you, and I want that—but not here.  I want us to be in bed.  I want to touch you, naked, before you do that, and I want a chance to return the favor.  I want so much, Sherlock, please.”

“Love?” Sherlock asked stupidly as got clumsily to his feet.

“Don’t you know?” John asked.

Sherlock did know, but hearing the word sent a jolt of pleasure through him.  John got to his feet and pulled him into another kiss, a tender, sweet, romantic thing, and Sherlock wondered if he could breathe and if breathing would make it feel different—better?  Worse?

“You’re mad if you don’t know, because I know you can see it,” John said, then gave him another pure kiss.  “You have to be able to feel it.  Sherlock Holmes, I love you.  I’ve fallen in love with you and I can’t live without you.”

“Thank God you did,” Sherlock said, taking John’s hand in his own and pulling him towards his bedroom.

“It wasn’t living,” John said as they crossed the threshold.

And the dance began as they watched each other remove clothing, as they reached for each other, as John turned his face away under Sherlock’s deductive glare, somehow embarrassed by his body despite Sherlock’s open fascination and bald need.  Sherlock collected John against himself, skin on skin, and murmured in his ear:

“You are everything to me, John Watson, everything beautiful and good.  Your body is perfect.  Your heart is perfect.  Your eyes are the perfect blue and your smile is the perfect thing, the thing I want to see every day and as often as possible.  Do you know what it does to me to have you like this?  Open and vulnerable and trusting?  Because I trust you, John, I—“

John started laughing, that sweet, high-pitched giggle Sherlock loved best.  “Your voice, Sherlock.  Goddammit, I’m on the verge of coming right here, right now—“

“So having me talk doesn’t bother you?”

“Bother me?  Good God, you great git.  If your voice had bothered me I would have moved out ages ago.  For a man who told me he didn’t talk for days on end you never seem to tire of talking—“

Sherlock kissed John softly.  “Because I trust you.  Because I want to share everything with you, everything I’m thinking, everything I’m feeling.”  He squeezed John against him.  “And I’m feeling so much right now I don’t know if there are enough words for it.”

“Then try to find them all,” John said, giving Sherlock a solid shove until he fell on his bed with a small bounce.  “I’m a man of action, and while you’re talking I’m going to be trying to take your breath away.”

Sherlock’s body was free now—free of all of his reservations, all of his fight against the rules he’d imposed on himself, free to love and touch and enjoy the man in bed with him.  He did that—he touched.  He kissed.  He tasted.  They spent a delightful afternoon in lazy exploration, aroused the whole time, occasionally giggling over an inadvertently discovered ticklish spot or groaning over something that threatened to end the proceedings altogether.  And Sherlock did speak the whole time, giving John ample feedback and opening his heart wide:

“John, please, yes, that feels so good, right there—you’ve patched me up so many times, how can this touch be different?  Isn’t that odd?  How can it feel so different when you touch me there, right—oh, there—when you’ve disinfected it before, that cut on my chest from the knife, the mugger that time, remember?  But your mouth there, John.  John.  _John_.  Your name, I love your name, do you know it?  Every syllable of your name.  _John.  Hamish.  Watson._ It fits you, that endlessly practical common name with a touch of whimsy in the middle, that exceptional bit hidden in the—oh, ah, God, John—in the middle where not everyone can see it.  So like you.”

“Sherlock, I’m going to put my mouth on you now.”

“You’ve had your mouth on me almost the whole time, I don’t understand—“

“Here.”

“Oh.  _Oh_.  Is that really wise?  That would end everything—“

“Shut up.  I can’t wait anymore.  I want to watch you come, Sherlock, and whatever reservations I had at the beginning of this about sucking you off are well and truly gone.  I need this.”

And with a warm, wet lick John began and Sherlock’s head filled with a bright and overwhelming pleasure, so much better than that old dragon of his drug-addled younger days—this was brilliant, lovely, gorgeous.  This was everything.  This was John’s mouth on his cock, his poor neglected cock.  This was love, finally, after far too long.

“This doesn’t end anything,” Sherlock gasped.  “This begins everything.  This is just the beginning.  John, God, John, we can do this again, can’t we?  All we want.  I will want . . .I want . . .”

And then John stole his breath, just as he promised he would, and Sherlock’s mind was filled with a chorus of song and a drone of bees.  Even as the bees droned on, lazy and fat and completely benign, Sherlock slithered down John’s body, wanting to give him back that gorgeous pleasure, wanting to be everything to him as he’d become everything to Sherlock, everything in the world good and lovely and right.  He couldn’t use his voice but he spoke to John just the same, using his tongue and mouth to paint his affection over John’s cock, telling stories about his loneliness and how it was now ended, his joy, and he enthusiastically drank down everything John’s orgasm fed him, the slick bittersweet of him so easy to take because it was _John’s_ come and someday, if Sherlock was good and lucky, he would feel John inside him, moving and filling him, filling all the sad and empty corners, erasing the ridicule and isolation and—

John was pulling him up and into his arms.  “Mine,” he said softly into Sherlock’s hair.

“Mine,” Sherlock echoed, pressing his hand over John’s heart.

And for just a moment, all of the things Sherlock wanted to say—all the stories he wanted to tell, all the feelings he wanted to express—fell silent.  It was him and John now and forever, and he had all the time in the world.


End file.
